Why Are We Still Fighting About STNP?

Dear Editor,
    I can't believe that we're still fighting about the South Texas Nuclear Project [“AE's Nuclear Option,” News, Jan. 21]. (I refuse to buy into the PR campaign to drop the word "nuclear." Otherwise, it could be confused with the Alan Parsons Project.)
    Forget for a moment that nuclear power is inherently unsafe and that it's a Rube Goldberg scheme to boil water in the least efficient manner possible. Let's just look at what we're going to do with the waste.
    We have no national repository for high-level nuclear waste, and any proposal to make more waste before we figure out what to do with what's already backed up is somewhat akin to buying a house with no plumbing and assuming we'll come up with a solution before the buckets fill up.
    Nuclear power also makes no sense economically. In 2003, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the chances of a new nuclear reactor defaulting was better than 50/50. The CBO assumed that new nukes would have a hefty federal loan guarantee and would cost about $2.5 billion. To give you a comparison, San Antonio bailed out on the South Texas [nuclear] Project expansion (and sued NRG Energy) when cost estimates reached $18 billion for two new units.
    So why are we still talking about this? The City Council tried to sell our share of the STNP a couple of years ago and couldn't find a buyer.
    On the other hand, prices for renewables are falling. Wind and solar are cost-effective, scalable, and create jobs in Texas. And that's not to mention energy conservation and efficiency. (Who could possibly argue that we need to waste energy or use it inefficiently? Well, other than NRG.)